distrustful of personal pronouns while speaking
of himself in the third-person singular mr nothing
wondered if he should use he or it if anything

he knew that it was easier to take something amiss
than realize himself as a person or to feign motion
instead of becoming fond of oddities of being alive

but not so much a disbeliever as simply uninterested
in an unnamed passer-by who exist only conventionally
mr nothing began to doubt that he is actually present

as the spirit that cannot be stillborn when mingled
with the crowd disappears and the only question is
whether it was innocent at the time when it happened